Jefferson and exploration. (Current and Coming).(Thomas Jefferson)

Although the seeds were sewn earlier, on January 16, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent a confidential letter to Congress requesting $2,500 to underwrite the exploration and charting of the vast and largely unknown lands west of the Missouri River. Jefferson had heard rumors that the British and the French were looking for a navigable waterway leading to the Pacific Ocean in order to establish their supremacy in trade across North America.

To lead what was named the Corps of Volunteers for North West Discovery, Jefferson chose Meriwether Lewis, his secretary and the man who had prepared the budget for Congress. Lewis in turn enlisted his friend William Clark to be coleader. In a letter of June 20 Jefferson succinctly explained to Lewis the importance of the undertaking: "The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, and such principal stream of it, as, by it's course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregan [sic], Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce." The expedition lasted two and a half years but failed to find a waterway to the Pacific. However, Lewis and Clark accomplished a great deal to open the way for westward expansion, and they added immeasurably to the scant knowledge about the western part of the country.

An exhibition that celebrates the bicentennial of the ...